The Quest for LOUD – Electro-Harmonix LPB-1
One of the greatest struggles for a teenage guitarist coming up in the late 70s was procuring an amplifier capable of getting you heard above a drummer (or a room full of other teenage guitarists coming up in the late 70s). It’s easy to take for granted the sheer number of affordable, medium to high powered amplifiers available today but back then any amp rated at just over a few watts was miles above the pay grade of the average teenager. We had to use whatever we could get our hands on via paper route income, Christmas or birthday presents etc. which usually left us with small solid state amps sold through places like Sears or Montgomery Ward. It was around this time when I first heard mention of a mysterious device called a “Power Booster”. This device was purported to increase the volume of your amplifier tenfold.
In the late 60s a dude from NYC named Mike Mathews started a company called Electro-Harmonix. The new company went to work on developing a “distortion-free” sustain device designed by Mathews and electric engineer Robert Meyer. As part of the sustain circuit development process Meyer created a simple line booster to pre-amplify the guitar signal for testing. Mathews immediately saw the potential for a gadget that could provide a massive boost to a guitar signal and overdrive the amplifier in the process so Electro-Harmonix released the device as the LPB-1 Linear Power Booster. It was a smashing success.
The first LPB-1s were crude affairs housed in a folded sheet metal enclosure with a 1/4 jack on one end and a male 1/4 plug on the other. All the electronic bits were wired up point-to-point hanging off the jacks, pot and switch. You plugged your guitar in one end and then plugged the booster into the amplifier via the plug on the other end.
I snagged my first LPB-1 around 1978 or so, used from a friend for 15.00. I don’t think I got much of a discount. I believe 15.00-ish was about what they sold for new. By that time I had made my way up to a bulky, solid state Standel 2 x 12 bass amp that was ALMOST loud enough for my needs. Upon plugging my LPB-1 in I was most delighted to find that my amp was now loud enough to do some serious damage. It took the wimpy signal from my Japanese single coils, pumped it up and hit the amp’s input with more juice than it probably knew what to do with. Being a sold state amp it didn’t actually sound all that great with the added sauce – it didn’t give up the sweet compression and harmonic content that a tube amp would have – but then, I wasn’t Eric Johnson or anything and at the time LOUD = GOOD. Sometime later I witnessed what the LPB-1 could do when used to smack the frontend of a tube amp. A friend had acquired an early 70s Fender Bandmaster and he plugged his Stratocaster into an LPB-1 and then into the amp. The result was one of those sounds that will haunt me ’til the end of my days. HUGE, muscular and highly musical is how I would describe it.
It wasn’t long before something replaced the LPB-1 as a method for achieving maximum LOUD. Possibly an MXR Distortion Plus or DOD overdrive. I don’t know what ever happened to my old LPB-1 but sometime in the 2010s I noticed that Electro-Harmonix had rereleased the LPB in pedal form as the LPB-1 Nano at a very affordable price. I bought one to revisit the circuit. I ended up liking it and for a time it sat in the last position on my live board and functioned as a semi-clean boost. It added some nice meat and sizzle to solos that the GE7 I was using prior didn’t. I was happy. For awhile. After several months or so I started experiencing some issues with the LPB. First, the board-mounted power jack loosened up and started cutting out. I fixed that and then one of the board-mounted jacks got flakey. Two strikes and you’re out is the general rule for my pedal board. I pulled it off, stuck it in a closet and slapped the GE7 back on the board.
Flash forward to 2 weeks ago. Once again I found myself pondering the dirt simple LPB-1 and decided to try and make one. I figured I’d take my time and try to construct it as bulletproof as I possibly could. I came up with a plan to use 2 – 3 lug terminal strips and do away with all board-mounted mechanical connection bullshit. I bought a pre-drilled enclosure, the best 3PDT I could find (the failure rate I was experiencing from 3DPT switches caused me to give up pedal building a few years ago. From poking around on the www I am hopeful that they have gotten better) and the rest of the parts and set to work rolling up an LPB-1.
The LPB-1 circuit is one of the simplest out there. It uses one transistor, 4 resistors and 2 caps. The biggest challenge was taking the schematic and coming up with a layout for terminal strips. Building this I instantly recalled the annoying “ship in a bottle” claustrophobic feel that comes from working in a tiny space. Upon firing the finished pedal up I was pleased to learn that it functioned flawlessly and I am once again the happy owner/user of the LPB-1. Happy Days!